Thank YOU For An Amazing 2014!

Last year at this time, I made an amazing announcement – it was the beginning of changing perspectives from a practitioner and executive role to an analyst role at the MHI Research Institute. This change was also driven by the ambition to take the specific topic of sales enablement to a more strategic next level, to connect the dots between experience, research and strategic thinking.

And here we are – one year later! 2014 was a truly amazing year. Changes are always a great opportunity to reflect, to learn and to grow. I’m glad that I had the opportunity to enjoy a few weeks for myself before I started at MHI this January. So, I had time put all my experiences and lessons learned covering the last 20+ years into my backpack, looking very much forward to what and how to unpack and to integrate with my new role.

I’m deeply grateful that I could make such a smooth switch in the analyst and research world. I could unpack lots of things I carried with me in my backpack. It wasn’t so much about re-using these things, it was more about taking them to a new level. It’s a fascinating combination of deep “brain” work, penetrating a topic and challenging it from different perspectives, and then connecting the dots to our customers’ world and to my real world experience. That’s a truly amazing role, and it’s a pure joy to make a difference this way. Making a difference also means to travel a lot, conference seasons are travel seasons, followed by “content creation” seasons.

Of course, all this didn’t happen on my own – I’m grateful that I’m gifted to work with such a great global team and the best coach I ever had, Joe Galvin. His wisdom and his experience in this space, as sales executive and as an analyst can hardly be topped. He coached me step by step into my new role. “This is another note” is still a running gag, we are laughing about, when I try to put too many thoughts in one research asset. After one year, I developed my own sense on “this is another note” …

It’s also time to thank YOU – again! Thank you for following my journey that changed from a sales enablement practitioner perspective to an analyst and research perspective!

Thank YOU for reading and sharing my ideas and thoughts. Thank YOU also for challenging my thoughts – doing so in a constructive way is key to grow – for all of us. And it’s necessary to what we all want to achieve – evolving the sales profession!

Wishing you a happy holiday season, and a healthy, happy and successful 2015 – whatever happiness and success mean to you. It’s like value for customers; we shouldn’t assume it; we should discover it – and it’s always in the eyes of the beholder.

May your visions become true

May you walk in gratitude

May you walk in balance

May you walk with lots of creative energies and a clear focus in the New Year 2015!

Those of you who know me in person, also know that I not only care about sales and world-class performance, but also about animals. In case you are looking for a great purpose for your year-end donations, here is my suggestion to cover both areas – world-class performance and animals:

Fiona Oakes is the fastest woman to ever run a marathon on every continent, and she is also a triple world record holder (Guinness), the fourth world record was just announced a few days ago. If that’s not world-class performance, what is it then?

Now, Fiona is on for the greatest challenge you can ever imagine, the 777 quest:
7 marathons, in 7 days, on 7 continents.
Fiona’s cause? It’s her Tower Hill Stables Animal Sanctuary, where she takes care of almost 400 previously unwanted and rescued animals, only with the help of her partner Martin Morgan.